# Game Dev Club



## Murkrow (Dec 31, 2020)

So the long and short of it is, that I work better when I surround myself with other people doing similar things. It helps keep me motivated I guess. Would anyone be interested in working on whatever kind of games you want, and posting progress etc here? Either large projects or small "flash" (RIP) games, whatever!


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## IndigoClaudia (Dec 31, 2020)

Murkrow said:


> So the long and short of it is, that I work better when I surround myself with other people doing similar things. It helps keep me motivated I guess. Would anyone be interested in working on whatever kind of games you want, and posting progress etc here? Either large projects or small "flash" (RIP) games, whatever!


That's a great idea, i've been trying to start on making visual novels, so maybe i could think up a few ideas for one


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## Murkrow (Dec 31, 2020)

If it's visual novels you're interested in making, I hear Ren'Py is a popular engine to use. I think it requires knowledge of Python, but making any game requires programming and Python is among the easiest to learn.


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## IndigoClaudia (Dec 31, 2020)

Murkrow said:


> If it's visual novels you're interested in making, I hear Ren'Py is a popular engine to use. I think it requires knowledge of Python, but making any game requires programming and Python is among the easiest to learn.


Oh, yeah i do a basic understanding of python, and if i'm not mistaken, i have Ren'py downloaded as well.


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## Sandstone-Shadow (Jan 1, 2021)

Ohhh a game dev club!! I've been dabbling in this lately, I'm working in Game Maker Studio 2 and making basically tutorial projects. Someday I'd like to make a pixel art RPG-type game, but I have a lot to learn still! 

Here's a screenshot from my current project - basically a low-effort graphics thing just so I can learn how to make dialogue and stuff, hehe!


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## IndigoClaudia (Jan 1, 2021)

Visual novel coming sooon


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## IndigoClaudia (Jan 1, 2021)

It's installed and ready! Now, to think of some ideas!

EDIT: I'm gonna start with something simple instead of the craaahaazy big idea i had for a visual novel


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## IndigoClaudia (Jan 1, 2021)

I have some ideas, and i even found some simple scripts so that i can include an RPG-like battle system and stuff


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## Zori (Jan 2, 2021)

I've always wanted to write something but I never got around to putting in effort (I always just channel them into forum mafia setups instead)
go for it


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## Murkrow (Jan 7, 2021)

I know the general story and setting of the game I want to make, but it's hard to then come up with gameplay that fits with it. The best games have gameplay the complements the story. RPGs seem like a kind of an easy genre to pick? Because the overworld and battles are generally separate from each other and the story mostly happens in the overworld and the gameplay is mostly about the battles. You need to advance one to get to more of the other.

Since I don't know how to use 3D models and animations I've made my characters 8-directional sprites in the 3D world. Since I don't have any spriting skills either, I'm using Pokémon Ranger as a placeholder. (also, super underrated game. And the sprites are so cute! the little dances and poses they do are precious)

Here's a video of what I've made so far using Godot.








Sandstone-Shadow said:


> Ohhh a game dev club!! I've been dabbling in this lately, I'm working in Game Maker Studio 2 and making basically tutorial projects. Someday I'd like to make a pixel art RPG-type game, but I have a lot to learn still!
> 
> Here's a screenshot from my current project - basically a low-effort graphics thing just so I can learn how to make dialogue and stuff, hehe! View attachment 918


I used to play around with game maker a long time ago, so it's probably a lot different than I remember. In year 9 at school they had us try to make a game in IT with it. I tried to make a platformer but couldn't get gravity to work unless you were moving horizontally so I just renamed the game "man who flies" .


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## IndigoClaudia (Jan 8, 2021)

Murkrow said:


> I know the general story and setting of the game I want to make, but it's hard to then come up with gameplay that fits with it. The best games have gameplay the complements the story. RPGs seem like a kind of an easy genre to pick? Because the overworld and battles are generally separate from each other and the story mostly happens in the overworld and the gameplay is mostly about the battles. You need to advance one to get to more of the other.
> 
> Since I don't know how to use 3D models and animations I've made my characters 8-directional sprites in the 3D world. Since I don't have any spriting skills either, I'm using Pokémon Ranger as a placeholder. (also, super underrated game. And the sprites are so cute! the little dances and poses they do are precious)
> 
> ...


Oh, this looks cool, can't wait to see where this goes


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## TrainerWalker (Jan 11, 2021)

Oh cool! That's pretty neat, this club. I've been working on a table-top role-playing adventure game that's based completely in the first two generations of the pokemon games, however there are a bunch of unique features that I don't think has ever seen its way into other games of its kind. I've been working on this project for over half a year now, and we've been posting all sorts of updates and sneak peeks all around the website. If you're interested, it's called 'Pokemon: Master Champion', named after the official pokemon board game called 'Pokemon: Master Trainer'. Give us a look sometime in the Clubs section! If anyone wants to ask questions, you can get ahold of me however you want on this website. Thanks for reading!


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## IndigoClaudia (Jan 13, 2021)

whats with people spamming the game dev club
._____.


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## Sandstone-Shadow (Jan 17, 2021)

Murkrow said:


> Here's a video of what I've made so far using Godot.


Ohh this look super cool, I'm excited to see what you do with it! :D



> I used to play around with game maker a long time ago, so it's probably a lot different than I remember. In year 9 at school they had us try to make a game in IT with it. I tried to make a platformer but couldn't get gravity to work unless you were moving horizontally so I just renamed the game "man who flies" .


Ahhh nice! That's kind of what my game is right now haha, I wanted to just learn the mechanics and didn't want to slow myself down by trying to make good art, so I just made a silly little ghost and now it is a ghost game XD



IndigoEmmy said:


> whats with people spamming the game dev club
> ._____.


Psst this isn't spam! TrainerWalker's been working on/posting about his game for a while now in the clubs forum :D


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## IndigoClaudia (Jan 17, 2021)

Sandstone-Shadow said:


> Psst this isn't spam! TrainerWalker's been working on/posting about his game for a while now in the clubs forum :D


Oh haha you missed the people advertising about the casino and the resumes
i don't think he's spamming


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## TrainerWalker (Jan 22, 2021)

All is good!


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## Murkrow (Feb 28, 2021)

I've been thinking a lot about overworlds in games recently.

The overworld in games like New Super Mario Bros or Super Mario 3D world are just glorified level select screens, you only have a character running around to make it appear less boring. Games like Mario 64, Sunshine, Galaxy, are still basically level select screens but they're build in a way that they control in the same way as the main game, it allows for some gameplay to be present and allows it to be a detailed part of the world in and of itself.

Then you have games like Pokémon where the overworld is where the majority of the game takes place. This works because the focus is on _the world_. It's about exploration and adventure.

It makes sense for those game series to have overworlds you can move around in. Compare to Persona (or at least the games I've played in that series) where when you leave an area you get taken to a map screen where you choose which location you want to go to next, because there's no reason for moving around to be an important part of the gameplay. What matters is what you do when you get to point B, not how you get there. Having to make your way there "manually" would be tedious.

The reason I'm thinking about this is because it shows that how you move about the game world is still closely tied to what kind of a game it is when not in the overworld. Pokémon and Persona both have turn-based battles but their overworlds have to be different from each other.

But what if you want to make your game have a pretty and detailed world to explore but the gameplay you have planned gives no reason to explore it? Adding some gameplay mode to incentivise it would be too forced, so the better solution would be to cut stuff out of the world that isn't necessary, even though that's the sadder option :(


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